• Horse meat found in Ikea meatballs, Czech officials say

    Czech Republic officials say traces of horse meat were discovered in frozen packages of meatballs sent to their country for sale at furniture giant Ikea. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

    By Juergen Baetz and Karel Janicek, The Associated Press

    Traces of horse have been found in meatballs labeled as beef and pork for Swedish global furniture giant Ikea, according to authorities in the Czech Republic.

    The horse meat was found in one-kilogram packs of frozen meat balls made in Sweden and shipped to the Czech Republic for sale in Ikea stores there, the Czech State Veterinary Administration said.

    It is the latest discovery in a deepening scandal over the discovery of horse meat in ready meals sold as beef in supermarkets in Ireland, the UK and other European countries.

    Markus Schreiber / AP, file

    Ikea furniture stores also sell typical Swedish food.

    A total of 1,675 pounds of the meatballs were stopped from reaching the shelves.

    Ikea's furniture stores feature restaurants and also sell food typical of the company's home country, including the so-called Kottbullar meat balls.

    It was not immediately clear whether Ikea exported the same product to other countries. Calls seeking comment from Ikea in Sweden were not immediately returned Monday.

    The Czech authority also found horse meat in beef burgers imported from Poland during random tests of food products.

    Authorities across Europe have started doing random DNA checks after traces of horse meat turned up in frozen supermarket meals such as burgers and lasagna beginning last month.

    The European Union's agriculture ministers gathered in Brussels Monday to discuss the widening scandal's fallout, with some member states pressing for tougher rules to regain consumer confidence.

    The 27-nation bloc must agree on binding origin disclosures for food product ingredients, starting with a better labeling of meat products, German agriculture minister Ilse Aigner said.

    "Consumers have every right to the greatest-possible transparency," she insisted.

    From lasagna and burgers to children's sweets containing gelatin, horse meat has been discovered in a wide variety of "beef" products, leaving Europeans to wonder what they're really eating. NBC's Keir Simmons reports.

    The scandal began in Ireland in mid-January when the country's announced the results of its first-ever DNA tests on beef products. It tested frozen beef burgers taken from store shelves and found that more than a third of brands at five supermarkets contained at least a trace of horse. The sample of one brand sold by British supermarket kingpin Tesco was more than a quarter horse.

    Such discoveries have spread like wildfire across Europe as governments, supermarkets, meat traders and processors began their own DNA testing of products labeled beef and have been forced to withdraw tens of millions of products from store shelves.

    More than a dozen nations have detected horse flesh in processed products such as factory-made burger patties, lasagnas, meat pies and meat-filled pastas. The investigations have been complicated by elaborate supply chains involving multiple cross-border middlemen. 

    Related:

    Horse meat in the US? Unlikely, but tests are rare

    'Fraud on a massive scale': Europe's horse meat scandal keeps on growing

    'Criminal conspiracy' blamed for European horse-in-burger scandal

    This story was originally published on Mon Feb 25, 2013 6:57 AM EST

    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Half of world food goes to waste, global study says

    Bay Ismoyo / AFP - Getty Images

    Indonesians buy staple foods as vendors mind their stalls at a traditional street market in Jakarta on Jan. 3.

    By Duncan Golestani, NBC News

    As much as half of the food produced worldwide ends up being thrown away every year because shoppers are too choosy about the appearance of fruit and vegetables, a report said Thursday.

    The world produces about four billion metric tonnes of food a year but up 2 billion tonnes is never eaten, the global study by the London-based Institution of Mechanical Engineers said.

    The organisation lays the blame at every step of the food chain, from farming practices to consumers.

    It says retailers reject millions of tonnes of crops because of the physical appearance of fruit and vegetables, fearing shoppers will not buy them unless they look perfect.

    Related: U2's Bono talks curbing hunger with NBC's Andrea Mitchell

    The institution is also calling for a change in farming practices and also a change in how we all think and value the food we buy. 

    "With current practices wasting up to 50 percent of all food produced, engineers need to act now and promote sustainable ways to reduce waste from the farm to the supermarket and to the consumer," the report said.

    Food consumption is becoming an important global issue. By the end of the century the world could have an extra 3 billion people to feed, according to the United Nations. 

  • Violent labor strikes expand to South Africa farms

    AP

    Farmers spray water as they try and save around 18,000 empty fruit containers from burning after being set alight by farm workers in Wolseley, South Africa, on Nov. 14. Violent protests by farm workers have erupted in South Africa after weeks of unrest in the country's mining industry. The workers have been protesting their wages, saying they want a minimum wage of $17 a day. Currently, workers make about half that amount a day.

    AP

    South African Police arrest farm workers after they went on a rampage in Wolseley, South Africa,on Nov. 14.

    AP reports -- Down a two-lane road, where slag heaps tower and miners' shack homes crowd against each other, the labor unrest now gripping South Africa first caught fire.

    Mining companies here outside of Rustenburg, a city about 100 kilometers (60 miles) northwest of Johannesburg, saw workers walk off the job and continue to demand higher wages, even after violence during six weeks of strikes and a mass police shooting at one mine killed 46 people. The strikes recently spread to agriculture, South Africa's other major economic engine, as day laborers burned farms and fought with police Wednesday in violence that left at least one person dead and five others injured.

    The unrest has shaken South Africa, a nation now free from apartheid-era laws, but not of its legacy of economic disparities between whites and blacks. And though the grip of the strikes appear to have loosened, the damage done to South Africa's anemic economy could last even longer.

    Wednesday, their protest turned violent as workers set fire to some farms, overturned a police truck and confronted officers in riot gear in the country's Western Cape. The police fired tear gas to drive away protesters, as the sounds of gunshots could be heard in local television footage.

    One man was killed in the violence "as a result of police action," police Lt. Col. Andre Traut told the South African Press Association. At least five other people were injured.

    Read the full story.

    Rodger Bosch / AFP - Getty Images

    Members of the South African Police Services run after some people, during a farmworkers strike, on Nov. 14, in Wolesley, about north of Cape Town, South Africa. South African police on Wednesday said one person was killed and five others injured as protests by farm workers demanding higher pay descended into violence, prompting calls for the military to be deployed. A week-long protest by farm workers spilled over into bloodshed with chilling echoes of recent mining unrest that has claimed more than 50 lives. "We can confirm the death of a 28-year-old man in Wolseley and five others wounded," Lybey Swartz of the Western Cape police told AFP.

    AP

    The remainder of 18,000 empty fruit containers after they were set alight by farm workers in Wolseley, South Africa, on Nov. 14.

    AP

    A South African Police truck that was overturned by farm workers after they went on a rampage in Wolseley, South Africa, on Nov. 14.

    Rodger Bosch / AFP - Getty Images

    Fruit bins burn at a packing store on Nov. 14, in Wolesley, South Africa. The fire, which burnt more than 15,000 wooden bins is thought to be connected to the farm workers strike.

    Follow @NBCNewsPictures

    Sign up for the NBCNews.com Photos Newsletter

  • Chicken lays really jumbo egg in Colombia

     

    A chicken in Colombia has laid an egg that weighs over a half a pound. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.

    By msnbc.com staff

    SAN FRANCISCO, Colombia -- A farmer hopes his hen's enormous egg will make it into the record books.

    The farmer's daughter got a real surprise recently when she found the egg weighing 8.6 ounces, or about four times the normal weight of an egg.

    The farmer, Hernando Niño, from the Cundinamarca region, says he plans to contact Guinness World Records as he's never seen in his 20 years of farming anything like what his 5-year-old hen, named Franciscana, laid.

    "The egg will stay in a glass case for people to see and so it is preserved," Niño said.

    More from msnbc.com and NBC News: